User blog:ErdamonPL/Tier list (an off-topic project to make our game look more competetive (mlg memes))
So, since we already started establishing some real meta here, I thought that it'll be a good idea to start making some tier lists! This not only makes our mod look more serious from the competetive side (should we even care about this factor?), but, this experiment may also give us some useful information on how we should balance out the heroes! (disclaimer: Stuff written in Italic is a pure speculation) Here's one tier list made by me (as of 13/02/2016): S(oviet)-tier The best of the best, here the place will find heroes who are deemed broken or just highly contested picks which any team would like to have in any situations. : Well that was unexpected. With the rework to Herculeon's W, he shifted more towards the role of an agressive fighter who beats the living hell out of people. Perhaps a little bit too much since he can freely duel anyone. With just a . Under both of Nexus towers. : One of the best teamfighters around, lots of AoE damage coupled with long stun and a unique forced attack mechanic on top of high mobillity and dueling potential give him perfect tools to wreak havoc. He can potentially fall one tier down, due to the recent which means that now his ultimate will be a lot less accessable. Now every usage of Rachet's R will matter and misuse will be punished even harder. : After the Living Shades stopped being so crappy, and Stymire herself got buffed not so long ago, she became a monster of a hero. Incredibly high mobillity, great dueling potential and a ton of summons make her a really great splitpusher that even behind, can singlehandedly win games by pressuring enemies hard enough. : Not telegraphed, long ranged, long duration, AoE CC on top of high damage and tankyness. Also given his amazing roaming potential can seriously wreck someone's day, especially if they have no tools to deal with this kind of power. Tier 1 Not as strong as S-tier folks, but are still really strong in the current state of being. Many of those heroes can take over the game and carry their teams to victory, but require a little more coordination. : When you come back, you do it with style. Now that Aghosth has returned he can be a very interactive hero again and piss off people during the laning phase. His reworked kit does add some more counterplay and he's not that much of an issue as he was before, but he's still a threat that can completely destroy people if they're not careful enough. Better dust off your Ians. : Reliable lockdown is something that should never be underestimated, and that's what Aephus does best. With his high burst damage and stuns he can very easily pick off isolated enemies or disable/kill an enemy mvp. Despite his main weakness being falling off later into the game he's still a very good pick to win the game purely thanks to early advantage. : Our Birdman is a prime example of a bruiser-carry (if something like that exists anyway). With his great amounts of dps and innate tankyness coupled with some healing, he can easily outduel many (if not all) physical damage dealers. He is very close to get into S-tier, but he's quite vulnerable kiting, magical damage burst/poke, and a failed ult might result in a rather awkward situation... While still very strong, now that will stun for a bit shorter duration, it's aspect of a long range initiation won't probably be as noticeable as it used to. Despite Ayler's amazing damage and snowball potential, you'd probably want to trade him for someone like or if you want just the crowd control. : With the addition of , Crona became a much bigger threat once she gets going. The damage potential this item offers and the overall synregy with Crona's kit, makes her much more powerful as a hero overall. And with the last buff to , she is capable of just destroying anyone in a 1v1 scenario even if Crona gets the slightest lead above them. : A total utillity bot (or rather... golem). Back in the days he used to have a really retarded damage, but he isn't bad with what he's left. With a crap ton of cc, a team-wide heal, a very good potential to pick-off he is still a force to be reckoned with. : Not exactly an assassin as he was intended to (more of an ad mage thing), but he's still rather strong at what he's doing. Killing people. With the addition of new mana/ad items his laning phase got much better and he's got access to much better core items that can actually support his playstyle, while still retaining his incredible mobillity and the potential to completely wreck people out of position. : After a series of buffs on her release, she became quite a strong pick as a carry with magic dps. Her poke is really good in the laning phase, and with her long AA range, she can both harrass enemies and farm safely. In the late game she can put out high amount of damage over time at medium range and snipe people with considerable amount of nuke damage. Just make sure you've got the right support to back you up. : Oh boy he's one hell of a fighter. With lots of in-combat sustain, stickyness (uh?), mobillity, single target CC and (of course) damage, he can be a real pain to duel because if a fight drags on for long, he'll outscale anyone eventually, and if he's ahead, then that point is reached even earlier. I was thinking about giving him the S-tier spot, but he is still really easily countered by poke and cc as well as some burst, so upon firing every single cannon you've got on this poor bastard he shouldn't be a problem anymore. : Still strong. Still a safe pick. Still doesn't care. Sakura is pretty much your "Carry 101". Farming abillity? Check. Dueling potential? Check. Poke? Check. Safe laning? Check. Freaking cc and damage immunity? Why the hell not? While she still has an obvious weakness of no hard cc (and her only cc being weak) or sustain, she's still a pick that can carry teams to victory. : Pretty self explainatory, healers are highly valued in such a game as VotE, and she's definitely the gal you want on your team. She not only can protect her allies very well with heals and peel, but also initiate fights from across the map, and deal a suprisingly good and consistent dps! The obvious weakness being innate squishyness or somewhat higher above average mana costs do keep her in line, but she's still someone you wouldn't mind having on your team. : If not his rework, he would probably be orbiting around Tier 3/Trash Tier, but yea, his rework happened, and now you see the results. From a really meh guy he became a real menace, his poke became almost godlike (it still has quite low range), and his kiting pattern now became a lot more important to his gameplay, giving him some gameplay pattern in general. (Force the enemies to chase you, kite them with Q/E, when they're low enough, ult.) : There's that trend with micro based heroes who are not being dominant, isn't it? Whulag is a ridiculously good jungler just by his design itself. Even if you can't utilize your pets to the fullest, you still gain a ton of map pressure, overall presence and have a fairly quick jungle clears. And given how strong his pets can be, master Whulag player will just completely obliterate the competition. : OH BOY THIS WAS A SUPRISE. Despite the fact that his laning phase is pretty much outright bad, he went up in the rating for a simple reason: the latest buff to turned him from a late-game monster into a mid-game monster and a late-game festival of broken stupidity. As the game progresses, his dueling potential becomes stronger and stronger, until the point where only equally fed can even think about dueling him, and he achieves that simply thanks to large stat growth combined with 3 of his abillities being basically damage/survivabillity steroids, not to mention his splitpush which can be really terrifying to face. Tier 2 These are more of a situational picks. Sometimes they can completely destroy the opponents, but need exact conditions to be efficient, be it a complete snowball, item or team dependancy. : Despite the popular belief that infinite stacking mechanic are overpowered and toxic, isn't the best example of this sentence... She needs a lot of time to get some good damage on her Q, but she still makes it up with her kit. : In the hands of right player, he can absolutely wreak havoc and spread chaos across the enemies resistance while also helping out his own frontline. is without a doubt a really good disabler/disruptor, and his utillity should not be underestimated what so ever. His major weakness however, is the fact that he can fall off pretty significantly in the late game, even by support standards, giving him this "hold the momentum" feel. : Overpowered? Debatable. Toxic? Not really. Annoying? Like hell he is. There is simply no better character purely designed for pubstomping that feels like fish in the water in an unorganised compositions. From the very first kill he can already snowball really hard, wrecking everyone who dares to shut him down, and eventually will simply outscale anyone with the power of raw numbers. While he can be an unstoppable force of destruction and sorrow, he can be still easily countered by many things, this is why he might not be so good in a fight against a coordinated 5 man team who can shut down our tormented ancient with the right decisions. : Now that Ju'shu recieved a slight rework, despite changing only two of his abillities, his playstyle has changed DRASTICALLY. Now rather than being an awkward ball of stats with a dash, he became a much more interesting and quite fun of a hero with his outplay potential and pretty funny interactions. Despite him being much healthier, his kit suffers from some other problems, like the fact that now his mobillity requires much more conditions to be fullfilled and he got slightly more mana hungry. But that doesn't mean he's bad of a pick, solid, but not ridiculous. : In a world full of melee carries/brawlers and beefy but immobile tanks, slowly increasing pool of ranged heroes does shake things up, and just completely turns things upside down. Her extraordinary burst, element of suprise and a really good tank killing abillity in a form of , makes her a big threat to anyone who overextends and gets caught into her trap. That is, that's the only thing she really does well, stalking people and killing them without breaking a sweat, but due to her being really squishy, without some major sustain items or support with healing abillities, your mistakes will be punished, HARD. Seren's another hero who greatly benefits from the addition of , while it does grant her much more burst damage and synergizes with her, she doesn't seem to get this much value out of it unlike the other users, since her cooldowns are not as consistent as with or . Overall this item doesn't seem to shake Seren's state too much. : Holy merry mother of Joseph this guy is actually viable. Yea, after a series of buffs and rebalances to his Hounds, it seems like he's a legimately good pick! Not only is he one of the best junglers right now, with his incredible sustain, but also he excels really well at taking the objectives and fighting isolated people with a pack of his summons. He's still worse than due to lack of stickyness/somewhat slightly worse burst, and is countered by , but hey, who cares when you can stay at full hp after clearing 10th jungle camp in a row? : This might seem to be a bit weird, but let me explain why did he not go any higher. He surely is one hell of a tanky disruptor, with lots of tools to impaire enemy's movements, lock them down, negate their buffs, disengage, pick off stragglers and in general ruin the day of anyone who gets too cocky. His main problem? Well, as much as he can get the job done, and excel really well at it, he got nerfed quite a bit for having this aspect of his kit be so strong (namely damage), and as he is right now, he might need some further tweaking to compensate for that loss, not as extreme as others tho, simple number changes would do just fine. : Not exactly as strong as but still a great healer that can aid her team in a variety of ways. Her fairly safe laning phase allows her carry to just farm up while enemies are being kept at bay, and later on she can transition into a force that can both set up a won teamfight or turn the tides of the fight. The thing is that she requires some coordination with her team. Health costs and fairly low damages do make her dependant on her allies not screwing up. Unless she gets ahead, then her ult becomes quite ridiculous. Tier 3 Purely matchup picks, that can work in some certain set-up, but unlike the Tier 2, they can't do anything without it. While also being dependant on a lot more factors, not only the right items or team coordination, but most importantly, holding the momentum without stopping. : We all remember the horror of release Azazel, don't we? Well now he's in a rather uncomfortable spot. While he does have quite good poke and lane/objective control, he can't really keep up with other mages/carries due to him being so fragile (he does get rewarded for being on low health, but maintaining that is a madman's job(lore reasons)), and his damage falling off on a long run until late game. And he can't solo towers so easily anymore, so there goes another reason why he should be picked. : Despite being an ultimate cancerous piece of stupidity, he is still rather... underwhelming compared to some other heroes. While he can blow other mages and casters into hell... that's the only thing he's really good at. His kit is purely dependant on who you're going up against, and how well you and your opponent are playing. Sometimes he can be a great counter to heroes like or , but he will be rather useless against the likes of or . Matchup dependacy hurts him really bad when it comes to his viabillity. : There it is, he isn't as useless as before. Now that his numbers got a lot better, his place in the game as an early game assassin is defined a lot better, as now he can do his job properly. His major downsides are still present... It's still rather confusing what to build on him, he has no actual safety aside from a dash which is really "meh" to be honest, and his laning phase is pure hell before he gets his hands on the . Trash Tier These poor, unfortunate souls here are held back from other tiers not only because of the complete dependancy on exact situations to be effective, but also because of their kits. They simply do not fit into most team comps, and can't really contribute to fights in a meaningful way, unless the enemies either don't know what they're doing or intentionally throw the game. *Disabled from the map*: While he has some really interesting gameplay pattern and some unique mechanics, you can't really say that is worth playing in his current state. Despite his ridiculous mobillity, it can be really hard getting into the fights due to how limited your mana will usually be and the fact that once your in the face of the enemy, you're gonna have a hard time killing them. He can't even match with the power of the other carries, because even if he can outdamage them, it'll take him long time getting into melee range, and in that range dishing out autoattacks, while others can respond with either poke, defensive usage of mobillity/cc, or simply superior dps. It's obvious that he's getting a rework, and some of those problems will surely be adresssed. *Disabled from the map*: Well, he isn't as bad as he was, but he somewhat still is... His kit doesn't play out that well with itself and he doesn't have any noticeable strengths aside from going fast while his ult is up. Credits And here's a template so that it'll be easier to make further ones, also, you can make use of it to do some tier list of your own and show the rest of people how do you see the hero balance in VotE: Sooo.... that's about it.... feel free to comment and post your tier lists! Category:Blog posts